You Shook Me
by Danielle59
Summary: What if Eric dated Laurie's college friend, Jaime (based off of Jackie from the TV series)? Find out here! Rated T for future language use, mild sexual content, and drug and alcohol usage. This is a collection of some of the adventures that happen in their lives. Read full synopsis! Enjoy! :)
1. School's Out For Summer

****AUTHOR'S NOTE/SYNOPSIS:****

****Okay guy, let me explain this one. The problem with sitcoms is that they don't go too much into character development, and they try to play off serious moments with humor. ******I've decided to take some liberties of my own and fix the errors and mistakes that were made in the canon of **_**That 70's Show,**_** and give the characters and plot more depth. ****Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love the show and what the canon brought but I thought that some things about it (especially Season 8 and all of those unnecessary contradictions throughout the whole series) were twisted due to the writing. **

**The first liberty that I've decided to take (which also happens to be the most prominent change) was with Jackie Burkhart's character. I felt like there was much more to her than the two dimensional character we saw on the TV screen. I grew up in a similar environment and lifestyle that she did, so I could relate to her more. However, you WILL still see the Jackie we all know and love throughout this story. :) I just couldn't bring myself to completely dismiss her. I've decided to switch things up a bit, and make Jackie's character be renamed Jaime. It just fits. This story is going to be told in first person perspective (Jaime's POV), as well. Since I really liked Jackie and Laurie's friendship in the canon, I've decided to make Jaime be Laurie's best friend. Laurie was also someone whose story I felt needed to be told, and I wanted to tell her story, but through her best friend's eyes. We never learned a lot about Laurie, and she's one of my all-time favorite characters, because she is so mysterious. So I'm giving her a back story so that my readers can learn more about her. I'm going to give more depth into her relationships with her family, and her friends.**

**Speaking of Laurie, her ORIGNIAL characterization and personality was that of a typical 60's "free spirit" type of young woman. The show never made it clear if Laurie ever had monogamous relationships, but I see her as having more morals and being more careful than what was depicted on the show. She's not the type of woman who seeks love through inappropriate sexual partners (IE. men who are married, have girlfriends, or are convicted felons), especially in a willful, malicious, and aggressive manner. All that changed post Seasons 1, and quite frankly it irritated me. So in this story, I'm sticking with her original character.**

**Other major changes to the plot and some of the characters include:**

**\- Hyde is with Donna (Donna was based entirely off of a girl that one of the show's creator's Mark Brazil lived near in New York, and she was in fact with Hyde and never was with Eric).**

**\- Hyde is Jaime's cousin. I'll get his later and explain it in more detail! **

**\- After a experiencing a miscarriage after having Laurie and before having Eric, Kitty (whose real name is Katherine therefor making "Kitty" a nickname) was a nurse until she went back to school to become an OB/GYN, a career which she later fills in the mid-1970s. **

**\- Eric was born a few weeks premature on May 29, 1960, therefor making him a Gemini.**

**\- Hyde was adopted by the Forman's when his mother dropped him off at their doorstep and abandoned him when he was 14, so he and Eric are legally brothers. And NO, he wasn't required to obtain the Forman's surname just because he was adopted by them.**

**\- Donna doesn't live right next door to Eric, but instead four blocks down from him.**

**The 1970's are my absolute favorite era. So I'm putting my whole heart into this story. Let me know what you think of it!**

**I really hope you like it. :)**

**Danielle F.**

**All chapter titles are song titles from the 60's and 70's. This one is "School's Out For Summer" by Alice Cooper. Don't forget to read and review please! :)**

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**CHAPTER ONE:  
SCHOOL'S OUT FOR SUMMER**

**ERIC FORMAN'S BASEMENT - POINT PLACE, WISCONSIN – AUGUST 27TH, 1976**

I'm sitting on the beaten up couch in the basement of my best friend's house, next to my friends Michael Kelso, and Donna Pinciotti. Sitting on the white chair on the right hand side of the couch, is Steven Hyde. In the lawn chair on the left side of the couch is Fez, the foreign exchange student from somewhere in South America. There's a Muddy Water's album in the record player, playing the song "You Shook Me". In front of the TV sits Eric Forman. We're all sitting in what we called "The Circle", and passing around a joint. Michael's talking about how he swears Robert Plant says "Kelso" in "Whole Lotta Love".

"I'm telling you guys, it's clearly in there!" He gets up frantically and goes over to the record player next to the backdoor, turns off Muddy Waters, pulls out Led Zeppelin's album, and puts on the song "Whole Lotta Love". He listens attentively.

We all just rolled our eyes. This wasn't the first time he brought this up while in the circle.

"Kelso, you idiot, he doesn't say your name anywhere in that song!" Hyde is looking him with what we can tell is a look of sheer annoyance.

"It's in there, Hyde! I swear!"

"Oh yeah, Kelso, we believe you." Donna said this sarcastically.

It was August of 1976, and the gang was about to start their junior year at Point Place High, on September 7th, the Tuesday after Labor Day. I was about to start my third semester at UW-Madison the same day. I graduated from Beverly Hills High School after skipping a grade in the fifth grade, and then skipping another grade in the tenth grade. I met Laurie, Eric's older sister, in junior high when I moved to Wisconsin for a couple of years before moving back to California.

Laurie was someone who I instantaneously clicked with, and vise versa. We met at McKinley Junior High (Point Place didn't have a junior high school, so we had to go into the next town's junior high school). I was the rebellious straight-A student daughter of a father who was in the Marines ever since I was young and was just recently in Vietnam, and a hardworking but free-spirited lawyer of a mother. We were insanely rich in Beverly Hills, California, almost being neighbors with Elvis Presley. Laurie was the deviant oldest child of Red Forman, an ex-Navy Seabee, and Katherine "Kitty" Forman, a UW-Madison Medical School graduate. Kitty was nurse when I met her in 1971, but now she was a OB/GYN, one of the leading female OB/GYNs in the state of Wisconsin, which was rare for this era. She worked at United Hospital System in Kenosha.

"Guys, let's talk about that concert next week." Hyde puts his hands on his knees. "But first, we need more refreshments." He smiles and gets another film container, containing weed.

"Jaime, are Paul, Adam, and Amanda still thinking of going with us?", Kelso asks me, having sat back down in his original seat, defeated.

Paul, Adam, and Amanda were my friends from college. They were all at least a couple of years older than me, but despite that fact, we all got a long pretty well. I had met Paul when I was visiting my mom's office in Chicago last year. Amanda was a classmate of mine at Madison, and Adam I had met through work. I introduced them to Hyde, Eric, and Kelso when I invited them to a concert in Chicago. Laurie was out with Randy, her boyfriend at the time, so she didn't come along.

"Who are they?", Donna asks me. I hadn't yet introduced them to her, or Fez.

"Oh man, Donna, you'll love them. They're Jaime's friends. They're really laid back and Paul's a bouncer in Chicago,and Amanda works in Chicago as a secretary. Adam...", Eric trails off, not exactly remembering where Adam worked.

"Adam is the owner of Grooves Records &amp; Comics in Chicago," I say, reminding him.

"Hey!" Kelso snaps his fingers together. This has got to be another one of his stupid but highly enjoyable ideas. "You know what would be great? If I can get just one date with Amanda. She's really pretty."

Eric, Hyde, Donna, and I all laughed at him. In your dreams, Kelso.

We heard footsteps from around the side of the house. The same side of the house the you walk into when you walk across the driveway and into the gate the leads to the Forman's big side yard. The Forman's house was on a rounded corner of Marie Drive, at 416, in Point Place. We all froze sans Hyde, who runs to throw the baggie and canisters in his room, and Eric and Fez who start spraying the basement with air freshener. I reach into the pocket of my jeans and pull out a lighter, and grab an incense and light it, and place it back in the cup on the table. Donna does the same. The steps came closer and were shallow and too big to be a girls, but I was wrong when the door opened and teenage girl appeared.

It was Eric's girlfriend, Cassandra. Laurie, Hyde, Donna, Kelso, Red and Kitty have told me quite a bit about her, so I knew who she was. Her long brown pin straight hair clung to her head and fell loosely on her shoulders. She was much taller than me, standing at 6'1. Donna, for being as athletic as she was, was even thinner than Cassandra. Cassandra was your typical girl from the 70s who loved The Brady Bunch and listened to disco. I could read it from her super thin lips and the look of disgust in her brown eyes as soon as she walked into the basement.

"Eric," she said as she walked over over to him and brushed her hands over her ruffled shirt and her red bell bottoms, "How come you didn't call me? I thought we were supposed to study together..." She looks around at us, and her eyes stop for a second longer at me. She turns back to Eric. "Or are you busy being a piece of shit? I swear to God, Forman, if I ever see you with these dirt bags again, I will make sure that you get and them get arrested for this shit that you're doing! You're wasting time with these people who don't care about you, Eric. And you could be spending that time with me. I love you, Eric."

She wraps her arms around his neck and gives him a quick kiss, and walked out the door after giving us all a dirty look.

Fez takes a sharp break in, as does Hyde. Kelso slaps his hand on Eric back and asks him when he's breaking up with her.

Eric slumps down beside me on the couch and places his head in hands and mumbles, "How the fuck do I get rid of her, guys?" He lifts his head up and looks around at us. "Guys...help me out here! I mean, she was just fine before we had sex, and then afterwards she just went crazy and turned into that." He motions his thumb towards the door.

I had to be rude. I place an arm around Eric's shoulders and say, "You should look her in the eyes and tell her to stop reading her Seventeen magazines, and stop living in her fantasy world. And then tell her to fuck off."

Hyde and Donna agreed. The two of them had recently started seeing each other. Fez looks around for a bit.

"Do you think we should bring her to the concert still?"

Kelso walks over to Fez and slaps him upside the head.

"What are you, crazy? I know you're not from America, and I don't know how you treat crazies in your country, Fez, but here in America we don't bring girls like her to concerts! Or anywhere for the matter. She's a psycho bitch, and Eric needs to get rid of her. Hell, we all know that I'm every woman's dream with my good looks and all, but even I wouldn't want to touch that with a ten foot pole. She makes me want to run for the hills."

Eric looks up at Kelso. "I don't think you're the kind of guy to take advice from on this matter, Kels. Remember Janet?"

"Oh man, I forgot about her. Yeah she was crazy. But hey man, you're a Gemini, and they're known for giving people the silent treatment."

Eric ignores Kelso and slaps his knee, and stands up as to make an announcement.

"I know you all are going to hate me for this, but we're bringing her to the concert next week. If something bad happens, then so be it. But I'm getting rid of her."

We all a feeling something would go down at the concert.

Eric had the gotten the easy way out. When the night of the concert rolled around, during the second half of The Runaways, Cassie had told us that she was going to the restroom, to everyone's delight. My friends hated her; they, like me, could read her very well, and loathed how she treated them and Eric. Eric, although silent, was still trying to find a way to break up with Cassandra. Amanda and I told him ,"Just break up with her. Tell her you don't want anything but out. If she begs and and gives empty promises, stand your ground. With how shitty she treats you, it shouldn't be hard. Remember, you're drawing the line. Grow a spine, man." Twenty minutes went by, and we still didn't see Cassandra. After a moment's silence to gather his thoughts and words, Eric told the group that he'd be back.

None of us were prepared to see Eric completely livid when he returned to the group half an hour later. He launched into what happened between him and Cassandra while he was away: On his way to where the restrooms were, he saw Cassandra. Time froze when he watched her come from the bathroom with some unknown man who was more rugged and more muscular than he was. He knew that Cassandra had cheated on him behind that closed door, any fucking idiot would have been able to connect the dots. Eric had injudiciously confronted her and broke up with her when the two of them emerged, disheveled. Upon seeing Eric, Cassandra had denied everything and called Eric crazy and to not worry. The guy that Cassandra had cheated on Eric with had joined in and swiftly punched him in the face when Eric had called her a psycho bitch for trying to gaslight him. While Eric was on the ground from the blow, the two had walked away. I felt bad for Eric, I really did. He didn't know what to do with her, or what to do at that time, as he had told us in the basement a week ago.

Paul had lifted his spirits when he had invited all of us over to his house in Loop, assuring him that _"We'll go over to my place and party all night, and Jaime and the rest of us can cover for you if your parents get worried or pissed. Seriously. Get over her. Like Kelso said, she just a stupid bitch. You'll find someone a lot better."_

**FRIDAY, MAY 13****th****, 1977 - UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADSION - 12:15 PM**

Today is my last day of finals at U.W. It's been a week since my last class held it's last lecture before exams started the next week and I'm sitting at my desk in my European History 124 class, writing my essay which was at minimum supposed to be 30 pages long, hand written. I was also thinking back on that particular night because that night was the last time we all had hung out together, and tonight was the first time in months that we were all going to hang out again, since we weren't busy with school and work. I still hung out with the gang with Laurie, because I only lived forty minutes away from Eric's house whenever I would stay at my house in Racine over the weekends (which Laurie preferred). Ergo, we were going to hang out more. I still didn't introduce them to Donna or Fez.

Glancing up every now and then to look up at the clock that's hanging over the door, I can't wait until class gets out in forty minutes. A cough, and then a sniff can be heard across the room from any of my classmates as they eagerly await the finish of their last essay until the fall semester. I've already had three other finals today for my other classes, the other three were last week. Thank god I only have three more paragraphs until I'm done with this stupid class. But I''m even more excited for the party that's going to be going down at Richard's house. He's a football player who got into college on a full-ride scholarship, so the whole team is going to be there. He was also Laurie's new boyfriend. There were going to be endless amounts of beer and hard alcohol too. All of our college friends, and of course I had to invite the gang to their first real college party. The badger mascot is definitely going to be there as well. Even the fraternity boys were going to be there. Just your typical college rager. Paul, Adam, and a few of the other guys could really settle the crowd down if it got too rowdy, so there was no worry for that.

I quickly scribble down my last sentences and get up out of my desk to make my way towards my professor's desk where there's a box to put our essays in. As I set my thirty-six pages down inside the box, enclosed in a three-ring binder, he looks up at me and tells me that he really enjoyed me being in his class this semester. I am really creeped out by this, because all semester long, he was eyeing me and always asking me to volunteer and call on me mostly when my hand wasn't even up to answer a question during a lecture. At one point he even handed a paper of mine back with his phone number on it. I give him a fake smile and vow to never register for one of his classes ever again. I walk back to my desk and pick up my ruck sack and purse from the floor and head out into the hallway where a few people are sitting on the floor are quietly talking. There's a few papers strewn across the floor.

Once I get down the stairs, I see Laurie waiting for me on the bench. She's wearing a cognac leather jacket with a green shirt underneath and dark blue flares with light brown wedges. Her blonde hair was feathered out, officially somewhat making her the doppelganger of Farrah Fawcet, a hairstyle that every woman pretty much died for. Her eyes look tired.

"Hey, how were your finals?", I asked, adjusting my ruck sack on my shoulder and running my fingers through my long blonde hair. I loved to dye my hair and try different things...although I would never go red, too light of blonde or all over black. Those two shades wouldn't fit my skin tone. But this time, I felt like going to my natural color.

"Not that great, I feel. I'm already flunking out of all of my classes pretty much, except for psychology and philosophy, you know the ones with the cool professors?"

I loved Laurie (whose real name is Lauren Anne Forman, but nobody ever called her by real name, so they always penned her by her nickname), she was like an older sister that I never had. We have the same mind basically. We were both rebellious at heart, we both rebelled against our parents (It was super easy for me to "rebel" against my parents. I came from a very liberal Californian family, I went to a very liberal high school in Beverly Hills, my parents were carefree about what I did because they expected me to do well, but when the time was right, they could be downright strict, even when I was emancipated when I was 14.), we were both somewhat mean to our younger siblings, we both loved to party, we both loved horror movies, and I can tolerate and respect her style, even though it wasn't to my liking. I just didn't agree with how she didn't really care about her education, and just basically wasted Red and Kitty's money for materialistic and superficial things. I liked makeup and clothes as well, however I was smart with my money, and I never had to borrow or beg money from others.

I pull my compact mirror out of my purse, and looked at myself in it.

"Yeah, I know of them. What about them?"

"Those were the only two finals that I feel really confident that I did well on." She flashes her famous smile.

I sigh. "Come on, we have to get ready for tonight, and I don't want to spend another minute here until the Fall."

We walked out of the Business building where history classes were held, and out into the Wisconsin sunlight. There were a bunch of students outside; some where participating in a drum circle, some were making out under the tree, some were reading, etc. Laurie and I walked across the lawn past the building towards the parking lot where my friend's car was parked. We had to go over to my house and start packing and getting ready for the party because I was going to be staying with her at her house in Point Place for the summer, which was about 2 hours from my grandparent's house in Madison.


	2. Rock and Roll All Nite

_**Author's Note: Hey guys! This is one is called "Rock and Roll All Nite", from KISS. :) Please read &amp; review! They help me write! :) Things will start to pick up after this chapter. I'm just giving you a brief background to Jaime and introducing you to her friends.**_

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**CHAPTER 2:  
ROCK AND ROLL ALL NITE**

Behind the wheel of Paul's car, I was mobile and carefree. Feeling the steering wheel's texture under my palms instantly made me miss my own car, a 1969 Ford Shelby GT500 (I also owned a 1971 Pontiac Firebird). It was still in California because my dad didn't want me to take her out on the 3,000 mile drive, insisting that it was too risky. I think he cared more about the car than he did about me, hence why I was emancipated when I was fourteen years old. After my seventeenth birthday, our relationship got better and we worked out our differences. He was only fifteen years old when he got my mom pregnant, who was only thirteen at the time. Almost a year later down the road, when we were visiting my dad's side of the family in Wisconsin for the Spring, my aunt Edna – my mom's older sister – got pregnant and was forced to move out of the house in Beverly Hills, because she was older and not quite the favorite of my grandparent's children. I've heard many stories from my mom and my grandparents about much of a "troubled girl" she was, unlike my mom (although my mom had a wild streak of her own – she was a groupie for Elvis Presley, The Beatles, The Animals, and The Byrds). Edna moved in with Bud, the father of her unborn child, in his apartment in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. They had a son in November of 1959. Shortly after, the small family moved into their own place, in a small town of only 27,000 people called Point Place, just next to Racine. We didn't see her for quite some time throughout the years, but still received birthday cards and what little Christmas gifts they could manage.

"Metcalfe's Market always sells to us," Laurie was saying, pulling me away from my thoughts. We needed beer for the party, a duty appointed to us by Paul. I didn't even know where Richard lived. If we'd thrown it at my house in Madison, everyone would know that there was a party, based on the riotous scene and the twirling lights on the police officer's car. Somehow, I had carried the ability with me from California to have the police always show up whenever I threw a party at my house. The neighbors always complained, some mostly minded their own business but not without rolling their eyes and closing their curtains. The area in Madison that I lived in was primarily populated with people my grandparent's age: late 40s.

We pulled into the parking lot of a local diner called Josie's Diner in Middleton not even twenty minutes from the university. We were regulars there, where we'd always go to cure a hangover from the night before. From the corner of my eye, as I'm putting the gearshift into Neutral, I see Laurie has the same look on her face she had when she told me that Randy had left her. Blase but excited to have that burden off of her shoulders. Randy was an awful person for her and a fucking idiot; I was just waiting for Laurie to see that. Although she was a year older than me, I felt more like her older sister than her younger sister. She can be naive at times, to the point where it gets her in trouble, but luckily she's more mature and aware when I'm around. A few weeks later, in October just after Eric and I had started dating in September, Richard walked into Laurie's life. Laurie then takes off her sunglasses and looks at herself in the outside mirror, sucking her cheeks in and puckering her lips.

"You're doing that look again," I tell her as I watch one of the waitresses sweep the lobby.

"What look?"

I turn to face her, "That pathetic look you always do when you pucker your lips and suck your cheeks in. It's not a good look for you. C'mon Paul said he'd meet us here. He's coming in from Chicago."

As we sat down at the table with Little Richard's "Lucille" playing on the radio and where we would see the cooks preparing the meals, the diner's head waitress, Darla walked towards us. Her red hair was up in a bun and she wore the pinstriped apron that all of the waitresses wore.

"Heard you were going to have a huge blow out, James," she said as she adjusted the menus under her arm.

"Yeah, everyone's going to be there. Even the mascot, Tommy, said he'd make it."

"Oh?," Darla furrows her brow. "Is there a special occasion or something?"

I shake my head. "No, today was the last day of finals, and what better way to celebrate than to throw a party?"

"Well, I'm sure we'll see a lot of you this summer."

"No, I'm staying with Laurie's family in Point Place for the summer, and Amanda is staying with Paul and Ivanna at their apartment in Chicago."

Darla smiles. "Well, I hope you guys have fun. What will it be today ladies?'

"We'll just have two waters and the special," Laurie says.

"Who's throwing a party?", our heads snap up when we see that the other waitress, Megan, shows up behind Darla, after she was finished bussing her table.

"They are," Darla points to us with her pen as she writes down our orders on her notepad, and leaves to give the order to the cooks.

Megan was a younger girl, no older than twenty-two. Her long brown hair was curled and thrown into a ponytail. The uniform was snug against her natural waistline. She did her makeup like Twiggy.

"I remember the last time I threw a huge party. It was my high school graduation night. I hear you go all out, Jaime," She pauses with her a look in her eyes as if she's reminiscing a few years ago before continuing, "Of course, I can't do that much anymore. After I moved from Oregon, I came to Wisconsin for college. I met my fiance Daniel my sophomore year and a year later, we had a son. He's quite a handful." She chuckles lightly.

Laurie's face lights up. "Hey! You should come to the party tonight. Give yourself a break."

"Ugh! A break would be wonderful!" She frowns slightly and then continues. "But wait, I don't have a car until next month, and Daniel doesn't get off until 9 o'clock."

"Give me your number and address so Jaime and I can pick you up. The party starts at 8." Megan writes down her number and address on her notepad. As she's doing this, we hear Paul's motorcycle's engine rumbling as he parks, and steps off his 1973 Harley-Davidson FLL Electra-Glide. I've heard the story a hundred times about how he found his baby when he bought it off some guy in Chicago way back when. He brought Ivanna with him.

"Oh no, here comes trouble," Darla says as she's bringing out waters to the table and looking out the window at my friends, and watching them as Paul, being the gentleman that he is, held the door open for Ivanna and walked in after her. Whenever my friends would come by the diner, we always caused trouble.

Seeing Paul and Ivanna together was watching something natural and beautiful occur. They were constantly in each others worlds. They were the epitome of the perfect relationship; They were two independent identities that could come together to become one unit who were capable of existing without the other person. They never kept score on their relationship, about who did what and when. They were never concerned with who did the dishes last or whose turn it was to vacuum. Not every disagreement between turned into a argument. Their relationship wasn't petty. They weren't particularly concerned with battling out over the minuscule issues that had no real bearing on daily life. But what one would notice that was immediate, was that one's vices complimented the other's.

While Paul was a graduate of Chicago, Ivanna graduated the same year as him at New York University. I had introduced Paul to her last summer when I had invited them out to a nightclub. I met Ivanna when we had the same job at a local record store in the big city. I learned that she had moved to Chicago, not far from my mom's house in Gold Coast, Chicago. She and Paul were now living together in Loop, Chicago.

"You owe me three hours, Jaime! My finger hurts from flipping off all these idiot drivers in Wisconsin." He slides into one of the unoccupied chairs, swinging his arm around Ivanna after she sat down.

I put my hand up as to silent him. "Don't worry Paul, I have your gas covered," I say as I give him fifty dollars from my wallet.

"So, how were finals?", Ivanna asks Laurie and I, as she pushed some of her long raven-colored hair behind her ear. She was a Native-American and she was raised in San Diego, California until she moved to New York for college to study Business Management. Then she moved to Chicago to start working at Grooves Records &amp; Comics as the second Assistant Manager alongside me. That's where we met Adam, the owner of the place.

"Exhausting," I tell her as I look down at what Darla has just placed in front of me: a double cheeseburger with sausage mixed in, with a mix of both blue and pepper jack cheese slices, lettuce, and sriracha sauce. Yummy. "But hey, no more school until September."

"You're not doing summer classes this year?"

I shake my head while swallowing the bite I had taken while my friend was speaking. "Nope. I'm not driving back and forth from Eric's place to school for six weeks." I recollect a little bit. "God, that was brutal and waste of gas."

"Why don't you just move to Chicago and transfer your credits to a university there? It's only an hour away from Point Place..."

I sit there for a minute, contemplating this idea. I knew that it would be so much easier for me.

"Maybe." I shrug. "I don't know yet." My brain was telling me that I should do it.

Madison was nowhere near as big and exciting as Los Angeles and Chicago, combined. At times, I did miss Los Angeles, so a quick trip to Chicago to party with Laurie always made up for my nostalgia. We would always go to the record store afterwards, regardless if we were supposed to be in bed curing a hangover. Laurie would help with the unloading of the morning shipment. I loved Los Angeles and Chicago equally, but I also loved what Wisconsin's capitol brought: a party lifestyle that rose up as a great symbol of escape and freedom from the button-down demands of modern life.

"Are you guys hungry?" Darla had come back to our table to check on us and see if we were enjoying our meal, and had spotted my friends without a plate in front of them.

"We'll just have what they're having." Paul nods in mine and Laurie's direction.

"Alright, coming up."

After we had talked over lunch, the four of us set off to Metcalf's Market for the initial mission: the beer run. Laurie and I would frequently make red eye trips there to pick up whatever necessity that could be satisfied from a grocery store. As soon we walked in through the doors of the market, an uneasy tension from a couple of ten year olds with their mother was met by Paul. He was a tall guy, standing at 6'6 tall – eleven inches taller than me – he had a scar each on his left forearm and on the nape of his neck from when he had stopped an altercation from getting near fatal, his dark blonde hair was shaggy, giving him an unruly appearance. Unknown to these ten year olds, though, was that Paul was the nicest and most laid back guy you'd ever meet.

"They remodeled the store a couple weeks ago and moved everything around," I say as I lead the group towards the back of the store where they kept their refreshments. Laurie had picked up a hand cart on the way in. As we made out way down the aisle, I see her putting six bags of twenty-four cups in the basket, a staple item for all ragers.

"Laurie, Eric and his friends better show up tonight" Paul was telling Laurie. She just rolled her eyes a little, and muttered that yes, Eric and the rest were coming tonight. She wasn't fond of the idea, but the rest of us persuaded her to change her mind. Eric and his friends needed to get out and experience an actual college party, and get out of their small town.

As we stopped at the beer aisle, our eyes scanning the abundance of beer selections. We grabbed some Budweiser, some Coca-Cola, some Jack Daniel's Whiskey, among other brands of alcohol, all in the same aisle.

"You're gonna want to get some Peppermint Schnapps, Kahlua, and a bigger cart. Here, you can use mine." A familiar voice without a face had said this. As we cranked our heads over, we saw our friend, Amanda. She was dressed in a bell sleeved mini dress that was printed with black and white mushrooms. Her smile was big and her blonde hair draped over her small shoulders down to her shoulder blades. Her aviators were see through amber, like Hyde's, so we could barely make out her blue eyes. She was gorgeous, always making sure to put on some make up every day.

"I already got some Fireball and 151 Rum. We're going hard tonight." She smiles at us. Amanda was a secretary in Chicago. She hated that job, as it was mundane and didn't fit her, but it paid the bills until she can land a better gig.

Paul and Ivanna were bewildered at the presence of our friend in Wisconsin.

"What are you doing here?", Ivanna asks her.

"Laurie called me after her finals on the pay phone to ask if I can help her and Jaime with packing for the summer."

Paul turns to me asking, "Why couldn't you call up Forman and ask him if you can use his faggin' wagon?" Paul hated station wagons.

"He was at school," I tell him.

"Okay you guys. That's all this store will allow us to get in one sitting. We can call up a few places to get the kegs.", Amanda tells us as we pile our drinks into her cart.

I straighten my back and push my long bangs out of eyes to glance at my friend. "Richard said he had already called a couple guys to deliver some."

"Wow, Amanda, you really got everything set." Laurie says, as she eyes the abundance of alcohol in the cart.

"I do what I can." She wheels the cart around and heads towards the front end where the registers were. We all followed her, weaving around and avoiding eye contact with a familiar looking older couple who were highly religious and stuck in the 1940s and believed that everyone should follow their suffocating moral standard. I fucking hated them.

"We still have to start packing for the summer when we drop this off at Richard's house," I tell my friends. I looked up at the clock as we made our way down the small space that separated each of the registers after we had loaded our items onto the conveyor belt. It was nearing 2 o'clock. Six more hours until the party.

"Everyone show me your IDs please," our checker instructs us. We all pull out our driver's licenses, and Claudia, our cashier who was checking out groceries out, scans our faces and date of births carefully.

"You guys must be having a party going on. You almost wiped us out of our whole inventory," Claudia chuckles, her plump figure moving with her laughter.

"We're throwing a party to celebrate our finals," Laurie tells her. "And then we're going to go to my house in Point Place for the summer."

"Wow, that's quite a ways down south," Claudia says as she scans the last three bottles.

Claudia pushes a button on her till to give us our total: $51.37. After we had paid and when we're about to leave, Claudia grabs mine and Laurie's shoulders.

"You be careful, ladies. I've heard from the grapevine that Jaime's parties are riotous and police get called. I don't want any funny business. And I don't want to see your faces on the 6 o'clock news in the morning."

"It's not my party. It's Richard's party. We'll be fine, Claudia." I reassure her. With that, Laurie and I turn and catch up with Amanda and the rest of our group.

I still hadn't made my decision. I might be going to Chicago in the Fall, and if that were the case, I was taking Laurie with me for the experience. I remember when she'd tearfully tell me over the phone how much she hated her small town when we were in high school, regardless that we were almost halfway across the country from each other. Right now, we were driving to my house that was along the lake to start packing for my stay at the Forman's this summer, with Paul, Ivanna, and Amanda following us. I lived in the affluent neighborhood of Shorewood Hills in Madison. In my backyard, I had a dock that stretched out into Mendota Lake where Laurie and I would go swimming and paddle boarding. Red loved to fish in the lake whenever he was up here.

When we stopped at my front door, I grab the mail from the mailbox, opened my front door, and we all stepped into my foyer. My friends walked past me and flopped down on the couch in the living room, as I trailed behind them slowly, glancing down at the receiving addresses as I walked. A utility bill that I'll send off to the post office on the way to Point Place tomorrow. A girlie magazine subscription that I let Fez send to my address in Madison. Coupons for Metcalfe's Market which would be of no use to me for a few months. I stop at a white envelope in particular. It's from my father in California. I open it, and sit down next to Laurie on my couch. Paul was sitting in the chair next to it, and had turned on the TV. The room was filled with the theme song of Happy Days. One of mine and Laurie's favorite shows.

Amanda looked around the room, impressed. She lived in Kenosha, just next to UW-Parkside. "Wow, your mom owns this place?", she asks me.

"No, this is my grandparent's house on my dad's side, who also own a home in Racine. My mom owns a house in Gold Coast and in Beverly Hills. But when I was emancipated, I stayed with her parents in Malibu."

After Act 2 of the show had just barely started, and Paul and the rest of the group were sitting glued to their seats, zoning out to the television screen, Laurie and I headed upstairs to my room to start packing.

Laurie opened up my bedroom door after we had passed the hall that was adorned with framed pictures of myself and my family. She flopped down on my Queen sized bed, dropping her purse onto the floor. The purse fell to its side, allowing a couple receipts and a business card to slip out onto my floor. The receipts were from two weeks ago, from one of our weekly adventures when we'd skip class every Wednesday. We drove down to Chicago to my neighborhood of Gold Coast and go to the Chateau Hotel dressed to the nines with our friends and throw huge parties in our room not giving a shit if we woke up the affluent yuppies in the next room. We'd go to movies all day and all night, regardless if we had already seen was what showing. We'd go cruising in Madison at night, sometimes driving in circles two times around the city before going back to my house. Concerts were one of our staple sources of entertainment. There were times when we'd go to the library and come home and sit and read books all day. Other times we'd drive to her cabin in Buffalo County, Wisconsin and smoke weed or drop acid and just talk. I gave her her first joint when she was nine years old behind her garage. She was so fascinated with my life in Los Angeles whenever I'd tell her stories, just as I was whenever she'd tell me stories about Wisconsin or her family.

My room was big. The walls were partially covered with posters of bands that I liked – mostly rock, and two posters of Nancy Sinatra, and a couple of other posters that I liked. I had a few framed pictures of myself and my favorite bands from when I was a groupie, on the walls. Next to my bed was an octagon end table with two drawers and various cool shit that I liked on top of it. In the corner of my room, I had a fake Areca palm plant that sat in a red pot. A record player system sat against the right side of the window, facing us. On the other side of the window was a wooden bookshelf where I stored my LP's. Two floating wall shelves stacked on top of the other scattered with years worth of cheerleading and dance trophies (which I should probably have sent to my mom because they weren't of any use to me here) faced my bed. Right beneath the shelves was a book shelf, which had my favorite book "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" inside the collection of books, along with a sketchpad for my drawings which had now gathered dust. My makeup vanity against the wall facing my bed was littered with mascara, eye shadow, chap stick, rice paper, and some comic books of Eric's, and it was framed with pictures of Laurie and I: a photo from last year's Halloween, the very first week we met when we were in junior high, at a party, us hanging out in the basement at her house, drinking beer on the hood of the Vista Cruiser. There was another mirror on the opposite wall when you walked into my room, and an end table next to my bed. I had two closets that lined the wall to my left. My connected bathroom had the door slightly ajar. There were clothes scattered near the corner of my room next to a hamper, and a stuffed animal was on the floor. I walked over to the vanity and looked at my reflection.

My hair draped over my shoulders in long waves from when I curled my hair the night before even though my hair was naturally wavy, and big like every girl envied. I let my part grow to the left side of my face to accentuate its better half and its oval shape. My heterochromia eyes looked back at me. In my reflection, my left eye was hazel-green with a section of it being brown, while my right eye was deep green. My lips were the perfect natural shape, not too thin and not too big. I put on some mascara and chapstick, and got up and went into the bathroom to get dressed because I didn't even get ready for finals. I literally just showed up to my classes wearing a tee shirt, sweatpants and some Keds. I flossed my perfectly straight teeth again and straightened my hair, and walked out and over to my closet.

"How come guy's clothes are more sensible than ours? I mean, look at this shit" – I pull out a pair of my mom's maroon colored velvet bell bottoms – "No one in their right mind will wear this."

Laurie looks up from a Cosmopolitan Magazine and has a disgusted look on her face.

"Ew, what are those?"

I shake my head and throw them back into the back of the closet. I pause.

"Rachel in my class said you were a slut, Laurie"

I look at my best friend, who is smirking from ear to ear and rolling her eyes before we both let out a howl of laughter.

"I know you've been with random men at our parties before, but that was after Randy and before you started dating Richard!" I laugh. I know Laurie. I knew that she practiced safe sex and always went with me to pick up condoms, which I could never use because I'm allergic to latex, and she always made sure to talk and get to know the guy a little first. She was also on the IUD, after I had gotten on it after I had started dating Eric. We both feel that sex isn't something to be afraid or ashamed of and people shouldn't relinquish their sexuality, and we also felt that people needed to know what the fuck they're doing when it comes to sex to avoid pregnancy and STDs.

**THE PARTY – RICHARD'S HOUSE – MADISON, WISCONSIN – 9 PM**

Madison was an ethereal, mythical paradise of beer, one-night stands, speeding tickets, and marijuana fantasy trips. My school was no exception to this. The party was underway at Richard's house. People were starting to chill out to the Bad Company record that Richard had put on, and the football team was getting pumped while taking shots of Bacardi 151 Rum and about to get started on the infamous elephant walk. The elephant walk was where some members of the team would get naked or at least in the underwear and do a party train while grabbing each others junk. It was disgusting. In the dining room there was a poker table where some of the frat boys and some girls were playing poker. Out in the backyard his dining room table was specifically set up for bowling. It requires no explanation. In this case, the football player being bowled must have realized that there's less friction when you're naked, which leads to more points on the board. After all, when it comes to the football party, winning is the only thing. Laurie understood this concept to a 'T', which is why she too participated in the game, along with the frat boys and sorority girls. In the house, some people were in the kitchen drinking out of the plastic cups that Laurie and I had bought at the store. I had put out a wooden table that I picked up from the thrift store in Richard's kitchen. After awhile of music, drinking, smoking pot, and talking, Paul jumped onto the table, then grabbed me and placed me next to him, while holding a bottle of Allen's Peppermint Schnapps and throwing off his shirt into the small crowd that had gathered around. I had changed earlier into some black skinny jeans and a baggy green v-neck tee. Paul was stoked. He was going to try his hardest to make this party go down in history, even if it wasn't his party to begin with.

"Alright everybody listen up. Hey step away from the stereo John. I don't to listen to any of your girlie shit." He pointed at John, a husky blonde Business Major who was about to put on some Sly and the Family Stone. Paul cleared his throat and continued.

"Alright, Jamie and I are here to make this party one that the whole city of Madison will talk about, and tell their children and their grandchildren about. Now that school's out, we have all the free time to go wild, that is unless you have work for the corporate America -" He was cut off by a distinct voice coming closer towards the house, and towards the front door.

"TOGA! TOGA! TOGA!" Kelso opened up the door and our friends followed him inside. Kelso was wearing a toga that he made himself, over his regular clothes. He also had an air horn, which he blew in the air. I shook my head at my moron friend who I could spend hours talking about Star Trek (no matter how much I never understood it) and Saturday Night Live with. I could see Hyde smack him upside the head.

"Who's ready to party!?", Kelso yelled. There was a small applause when Kelso said this. Probably mostly out of pity.

Hyde, Eric, Donna, and Fez had found me and invited me to sit them in the living room, where there was a sorority girl dancing on the coffee table with a lampshade on her head. She was evidently drunk. I was able to get a good look at Donna's makeup because I saw that she had applied her eyeliner wrong and just a bit too much blush.

"Oh my god Donna, you did your makeup all wrong. Here, come with me, and I'll show you how to do it." I grab her hand and lead her to the bathroom.

"Hey, at least take her out to dinner first!," yells Tommy who had heard me. He was joking.

"Don't forget to put on Paul Davis and light some candles!", Eric yells after us sarcastically.

I could faintly hear Hyde ask him if he really listened to Paul Davis and what the hell was wrong with him, as I lead Donna down to the bathroom. I knew Eric didn't listen to that shit. Before we had started dating, he still had some of Cassie's records, which were burned by me in their fireplace. Man, that was an intense conversation with Red and Kitty in the kitchen.

"So, is your mom really thinking about signing the deed over to you, Jaime? About the house in Chicago...", Donna had asked me awhile after we sat down and talked, with a beer in her hand. Her make up was fixed now.

"I don't know yet. She said she'd think about it," I say as I place my hand down on Eric's thigh, who was watching the girl dance. I take a swig of my own beer, catching sight of Megan walking from the kitchen towards us from my peripheral vision.

"Megan!", I say, pushing off of Eric. I barely recognized her from when I had last seen her in her waitress's uniform. She could really doll herself up. She was wearing a sparkly dolmen sleeve top with dark blue bell bottoms.

"So, how are you liking it?", I asked her, referring to the party. This was her first party in ages, so I wanted to be sure she was having a good time.

"I like it! Except that guy in the toga who was invited, eyed me when I walking in here. Does he do that to everyone?"

"Yeah, what do you expect? I mean, he's in high school..." I say, nodding. My attention is diverted from Megan when Jeff, a football player, yells, "Cynthia, get your shit together!" I swing my head around and see that the lamp shade lay on the floor and she had vomited over by the couch. Eric, Fez, and Hyde moved away from her while Donna and Jeff help her to the bathroom.

"She's going to be having a good night, hugging the toilet and all," Hyde tells us, smirking.

"C'mon guys, lets go see what Kelso's up to," Eric says waving at us to follow him as he goes into the kitchen.

The small kitchen in Richard's house was crowded. The five of us could barely make it to the kitchen table where Kelso, Richard and Paul had placed two kegs. On top of the table along with the keg, was Richard, who had busted one of the kegs open and made it spew out like a fountain. He had his fathers trench coat on and was trying to get as much beer as he possibly could into his mouth. Paul and Kelso were smirking from ear to ear. My sorority girl friends and soccer team friends were cheering him on.

After about five minutes of this, Richard hopped down off the table after seeing us. He walked right past us with a smile plastered to his face. We all knew that that meant that he had seen Laurie and the two of them walked upstairs together.

There was another knock at the front door, and John got up to answer it. He was still pissed about having to listen to our music, and because he was on the short side, accidentally getting shoved around. We all a little confused because I was able to invite the mayor of Madison to the party, and he was drinking sake with Leo (who I also invited last week when I was in Point Place) and his friends in the backyard by the tree where there was a fire pit. Who was at the door? Megan, Eric, Fez, Hyde, and I all went into the living room. 

"Hello, are there some Badgers in there?" is heard from the other side of the door, quickly followed by another louder knock. Crashers. "It's Hog." I tell Eric. Hog was a member of the rival university of ours: The Golden Gophers, based in University of Minnesota. His first name was Seth. John, not knowing of the rival university, answers the door.

"You guys, thanks a lot!" Hog says as he barges in as Kelso had earlier. "Is there a party going on here?" He uses his thumbs to point back at his friends who also came along. They looked completely different from Wisconsinites, besides that fact they weren't from Wisconsin. There were a lot of blondes in the group, Hog included. "What's your name? You wanna get our hats and coats and take them up to the bedroom?" Hog looks John up and down and his friends laughed, while John ignores the questions. The tension was in the air; the kitchen was mostly vacant because we had went into the living room where Donna and Jeff had just come back from mending to Cynthia. Donna and Hyde were sitting together. Hyde has his arm around her, but was looking at the crashers, with a suspicious looks in his eyes and his jaw was almost clenched.

"Wow sheesh you guys are bad!" John says, shaking his head and looking around, not believing these losers. He tried to shove them out of the door. Hog shoves him harder, sending him across the foyer. Just as this was happening, Kelso and Paul had come from the kitchen and walked into the foyer after hearing the commotion.

"Boy, oh boy! What an outfit you have going on there." Hog looks Kelso up and down, who was still wearing his homemade toga. I hear Eric murmur under his breath, "Kelso, you fucking idiot. Don't do or say anything stupid." I knew Hyde was thinking the same thing. Fez who was sitting by me, is looking sternly at the crashers.

"You guys are welcome if you have invitations." Paul tried to reason with the crashers, looking down at them, as he and Kelso were both taller them them.

"You know we do." Hog points to himself. "I'm it. You're looking at the invitation."

"No, the invitations were written."

"Who the hell are you anyway?"

"I'm just going by rules -" He gets cut off by Hog, who punches him hard in the mouth.

That started the upheaval of the scene. Hyde jumped up along with the some of the other guys in the living room, and went over to immediately stand up for their friend. Paul and Kelso had started fighting with some of the crashers that had ganged up on them. Someone in the living room shouted "CRASHERS!" before joining in. It soon turned out to be twelve men against twelve others, and whoever else wanted to join. Donna had joined in after awhile when one of the guys started hitting on her. After ten minutes, the fighting had moved from the doorway to everywhere on the main level of the house. Eric had moved me away from the living room to outside, with Leo and the others, shielding my petite 5'6 frame with his lanky 6'3 frame as best as he could. He would have never done that just a few months ago. I knew he just wanted to get away from the drama. Megan followed closely behind us. We pause halfway outside in the hall when we're trapped between the wall and another Gopher, who had the body of that of a professional wrestler, although he was still six inches shorter than Eric.

The Gopher smirked at me slyly, and had a manacle look in his eyes. He licked his lips slightly, and started to reach for my biceps, but not before I turned slightly to the left and punched him in the face as I could in order to sidetrack him and get him away from me. I wasn't prepared for him to punch me back. Hard. Eric sees this when he looks for me to get me and Megan out of there. The fight was still going on.

"I will fucking kill you, you psycho piece of shit!", he yelled while throwing a punch at the Gopher and not stopping until he was down at the ground, where Eric knew that he could eventually knock the guy out if he wanted to, or worse. He inherited his father's temper and also his rage when necessary. This was one of those rare times that Eric showed the "Forman Rage" as his father put it – a rage so powerful that it can even scare the ones expressing it.

"You guys!"

Eric had finished when the Gopher runs out the front door scared for his life, with two of his friends following suit. Eric's knuckles were bloody and bruised from beating the shit out the crasher, and his face was slightly flushed. Richard and Laurie had come stairs to see what all the commotion was about. Laurie ducks out of the way when a crasher starts to fight with Richard. Laurie runs up to us, and we go into the kitchen where she then turns to us.

"What the hell is going on?"

"The guys decided to come up with a new way to welcome the guests to the party," Eric tells her sarcastically.

"No, there's crashers who stared shit with Paul and Kelso, and that's how this all started," I tell her.

We here Doug, who was a Agricultural major, from upstairs, running while shouting, run straight into the wall, and falling down the stairs, taking the house plan with him. He hits the floor and yells "CRAAASSHHEEEEERRRRSS!" Laurie, Eric, Megan, and I go back into the living room.

While this was happening, I see Ian, Madison's mayor, jumping from the coffee table for leverage and do a roundhouse kick to the face of a Gopher, while shouting "COWABUNGAAAA!" at the top of his lungs. He had come from outside, drunk from sake. Then he grabbed him by the back of his jeans and threw him towards the window.

"Open the window, Laurie!" Megan shouts.

Laurie opens the window and the crasher lunges out face first. A couple of his friends knew their place at this point,and just jumped out of the open window and ran into their cars, bloodied and bruised from getting their asses handed to them. Hog was the last to get kicked out, when Kelso had punched him the face one last time.

We all gathered by the window, watched the crashers drive off, looking over their shoulders at us. Richard was pissed.

"Hey you guys – SPLIT!"

The scene of the party dwindled down after the crashers left. It was now a little before three in the morning; some people were slow dancing in the living room, while most of them had left the party not long ago. Some people had started to clean up the mess, even though they were drunk. Laurie went back upstairs with Richard after awhile, and then they had vanished off into the night for an adventure of their own and to get away from the party. They later returned to mingle with everyone and had started to make out on the couch. Eric and I and the rest of the group just quietly moved from the living room to outside where the fire pit was, then had eventually came back inside to where the poker table was. We all sat around the table in a circle, lit up a joint, and started playing poker. Paul was telling Ivana about what had happened, as she was outside with Leo and everyone. Eric was mending to my face, which had started to bruise up, while I was holding up a mirror.

"Look on the bright side you guys. The police didn't come this time!" She says after he was finished with the story.

"Try pulling this in Chicago," Kelso leans back in his chair, a midst the debris on the floor. "Some one would have been arrested."

"This was the craziest party I've been too. People from Oregon are never this wild." Megan tells us, as she passes the joint to Hyde.

"Welcome to Wisconsin," Hyde says.

○-○-○

**THE AFTERNOON OF THE PARTY – JAIME'S HOUSE  
**

We were all loading Eric's car up with our suitcases, and getting our cars started to make the two hour trip to Point Place. Paul and Ivanna had to make an even further trip down to Chicago. Eric had offered to give him a ride, because he looked pretty hung over.

"Nah, man, I'll be fine. You all look tired as hell."

"Paul, what about your car? Do you want me to drive it down there, or do you want me to just leave it here?" I ask him, my eyes behind my aviator sunglasses.

Paul puts his hands on my shoulders and looks down at me. "Don't worry, James. Ivanna's got that taken care of." He puts her arm around her and kisses the top of her head, and gives her the keys.

"Jaime come on, my mom's gonna wonder we're at." Laurie calls out from the passenger side of Paul's car. There was no way that she'd be sitting in the cramped Vista Cruiser. So she was going to make Ivanna drive her home. I get in the backseat of Paul's car, and we were off south.

"Hi Mom, hi Dad." Eric and Laurie say in unison as the seven of us slump into the kitchen, where Red was reading _The Wisconsin Journal _and Kitty was preparing lunch that had chicken in it. Neil Young was playing on the radio on the kitchen counter.

Red looks up and mutters something. Although it didn't seem like it, I was Red's favorite of Eric's friends. Kitty puts down her dish towel that she wiped her hands off with, and is jovial with our presence in her kitchen.

"Oh, my babies are home!" She then proceeded to hug us all and give us kisses on our cheeks. She steps back a bit. "So, how was the drive back here?"

"It was good, they have construction up the ass as usual on Interstate 94." Eric tells her, nodding.

"Well at least you all came home in one piece. You look awful! Get some sleep, kids."

* * *

**Thank you for sticking with me! Things will start to pick up from here. There's also going to be more parties down the road, and definitely more scenes with Jaime and the gang in the basement. Please don't forget to read and review! The next chapter is going to be posted soon! :)**


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